


shot through with veins of gold

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Thieves, Dave and Dirk Strider Are Not Related, F/M, M/M, Multi, Princes & Princesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: Odd-connected thoughts on the course of a relationship: Princes, Knights, and Thieves all love somewhat the same.
Relationships: Dave Strider/Dirk Strider, Vriska Serket/Dave Strider, Vriska Serket/Dave Strider/Dirk Strider, Vriska Serket/Dirk Strider
Kudos: 4
Collections: Homestuck Polyswap 2020 - Prospit





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sartorially](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sartorially/gifts).



> "A Prince, a Knight, and a Thief walk into a Regency AU... and then they all fall in love.
> 
> Perhaps Vriska is a spy, sent to be jailed by the Royal Knight & Exalted Prince for questioning to gain insider information of their personal movements. Maybe Vriska is impersonating a noble at a ball to lift some trinkets and gets caught. Or Vriska is just a thief that steals into Dirk's personal chambers every few weeks to leave him stolen jewelry and Dave's always there to "catch" her.
> 
> Anyway, incredibly loyal-to-each-other Prince & Knight combination... My Brand. I love Dirk in pretty outfits. I love that for him. I love Dave in equally pretty but functional outfits. I like Vriska in stolen pretty oufits, because it's what she deserves. Long hair indulgence."
> 
> Vriska can have a little a Strider. As a treat.

Every thief has a story. This is a tenet of the soft-hearted, according to some of your compatriots in the Royal Guard, but you're certain that each Knight among you knows it to be true—every thief has a story, and none more so than the one you're currently shadowing through a quiet hallway of your Prince's palace, watching her every move.

Ahead of you—of her—there's a door open, just a crack, golden light spilling out from that small give in the armour like the most precious treasure waiting to be stolen.

She doesn't hesitate to steal through the night and slip through the door, leaving it just a fraction wider open for you—

You do not hesitate either. That is a tenet of the Royal Guard itself.

Through the door. Into your Prince's chamber.

She's already sprawled out on her stomach, stretched across his bed as she flips through the latest scroll or proclamation or whatever else the Exalted Prince has been ordered to read, her long hair tumbling out of the loose style she'd tucked it into. "That was barely a pass, Dave," she tells you, and you can already tell she's smirking, even with her back to you. "You're lucky I grade on a curve!"

The Prince—Dirk, you're supposed to call him Dirk, and that thought sends heat rising up your face and your mind into a spin—slips in next, and Vriska makes a rude noise. "You were even worse! Fail."

Dirk—the Prince—is incredibly pretty when he's affronted, but you think that's partly because he looks incredibly pretty all the time. "I did _great_."

"Daaaaaaaave?"

Your gaze swings right up to the ceiling, reluctant to meet either of their eyes. "You're the teacher, Serket."

"Dave." This is Dirk, who is taking your hand, who must be looking at you with such a sincerity (he's good at this, you've seen full grown councillors of war cave), who's putting all kinds of feeling into his voice— "Please?"

"I could track your position while I was still tracking hers," you finally admit, "but it was a lot better than the rounds previous, sire, I swear—"

Dirk pouting skips soundly out of pretty and lands at _cute_ and usually you couldn't help but kiss him on the pout. Usually, as the times you _didn't_ tended to be occasions where you couldn't, for reasons of state, publicity, or a certain thief taking advantage instead. This was one of the latter times, Vriska rolling off the bed in so swift a movement that you barely clocked it, landing on her feet to haul Dirk down into a kiss via one hand twisted into his long hair—you cup the back of her head instead, barely daring to breathe as they kiss right in front of you, seas and flame combined—

"He's thinking too much," one of them says, and you manage to class that voice as _Vriska_ before Dirk is dragging you into the centre of it, trapping you with kisses that Vriska takes over as soon as he lets you breathe.

"Oh," you try, and then when they pull back, grin at you, "fuck."

The sound of their laughter is the kind of music you wish every court musician out there knew how to play. You press your forehead to hers, to his, and the three of you tumble into the pile of pillows that always seems to magically appear when Vriska's here, magically vanish by the morning. There's another round of sneak in the offing, but first, Dirk will need to pick apart everything he did or didn't do, Vriska will need to critique you both, you will need to add another brick to the castle you're calling "Keeping His Highness Alive"—much to do, and no time at all to do it. You've learned, slowly, that you breathe the both of them, that your heartbeat skips too often when you don't know where they are, when you're not sure that they're safe. These lessons are your idea (one reason you're determined to be better than Dirk at them, competition will keep him alive), and Vriska has so many more tricks up her sleeve, and—

You're in love. No two ways about it, you're in love, and they're two parts of your heart, and you would give anything, do anything, just to keep them safe.

* * *

Your fellow Royal Knights believe that the tenet "every thief has a story" is the province of the soft-hearted, but you know it to be true: You've spent your time creating part of one, learning part of one, _being_ part of one. Who would you be to deny such a fundamental truth after living, learning, knowing it to be true?

Here is Vriska Serket's:

Once upon a time, she was a princess of a faraway and broken land that heaped too many expectations on her back, ruled by a queen who wanted nothing more than to sate her belly by eating the world. The kingdom had already begun to crumble around her, her people had already begun to desert her, and still she could see nothing more than the end of her own greed. Vriska's grandmother.

Vriska's mother and sister made the choice to stay, to take the throne by blood and fire, and make of it what they could.

Vriska had chosen to go.

Her considerable talents—the training of a princess in a kingdom eating itself alive—were enough to enable her to survive the trip from one country to another and another, to eventually ending up at a Prince's royal ball, to stealing all she needed to pass as the princess she was, in her own right, to stealing a dance with the Prince—with his Knight—

To stealing two hearts in one easy go.

(it would be hard for anyone to forget that, forget her, clothéd in jet black and deep blue, shot through with veins of pure gold)

Vriska Serket loved like a wildfire, but she knew how to trust, knew when to let someone help her halt the burn. She loved like a wildfire that brought ash to the soil and life back to the land.

And she looked at her Prince—her wonderful, vulnerable Prince—and she looked at her Knight—her beautiful, lonely Knight—and she decided that she could help them, decided that they were good.

That was the beginning of part of a thief's story.

The matching rings hiding in a corner of Dirk's chambers, where not even the most inquisitive of eyes and keen of minds could find them, were the next.


	2. thoughtmarks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't quite anything full but there were a lot of things and thoughts I had when I was writing the actual piece that wouldn't leave me alone? I ended up having to end it where I did so that it wouldn't turn into a sprawling 30k epic and be late for Polyswap...

_a scattered list of images from the kingdom, set to[song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GySIToHCPac):_

Vriska turns from the lock she's picking to grin up at Dirk; for a moment her eyes catch the light and flash gold—he wonders, not for the first time, if she's as god-touched as she seems.

* * *

Dave steps in front of—a curse, a death blow, a strike, a weapon—for Dirk, routine, doing as he's done so many times before. He blocks with his forearm, the strike hits, holds—

When he disengages, something's wrong. When pulls away, Dirk can see the blood, see, the injury, see his arm; shot through with veins of gold.

* * *

Dirk breathes in, breathes out, and Vriska's eyebrows wing all the way up, eyes wide, as he breathes out gold. Dave, leaning against the wall, watches and waits. He's used to this.

(Knowing that does not stop his heart from skipping a beat.)

* * *

Vriska twirls through a ballroom with practiced steps, practiced ease, pulling eyes towards her. She is masked; she is beautiful; she is everything sky and ocean-eyed and all the gilded spaces in between. No one can look away from her, and that's what Dave and Dirk are counting on, are trusting her with, without missing a beat without breathing without thinking—

This is the first time they wonder how things changed so much (how she changed them so much) that they could so easily trust a thief.

It is not the last, but it is the first, the most important, and the beginning to all else that follows.

* * *

Dave moves, and time stills.

It seems like a natural progression, this unnatural thing, and Vriska throws her head back to laugh, loud and full, the only thing that could break the spell he's laid: shatter time to golden pieces, put it back together again, her laughter and light and life. It's beautiful, mosaic slices of blue moments and bright minutes, cut into their component parts and reassembled for the beauty of the whole. Dirk's so far gone. He knows.

* * *

Dirk fights. Not often, but well, and now, especially. He loves it—loves the heat of the moment, the shining gold of each strike and blow, the way Vriska and Dave _know_ him so well they can block every move he makes, opponents opposed, then switch back to being his allies in the same breath, covering his weakest points, his blind spots, making him better. It's perfection, it's glorious, it's everything he is and every wanted to be—

He can't believe he's only known them like this—loved them like this— _courted_ them like this—three days.


End file.
